Last year STT went green. We switched to purely internet based marketing and eliminated playbills in favor of digital projections. We used the money we saved to pay more to our artists as we strive to be a leader in production quality in the community. This year we are taking things one step further. Audiences will use their smart phones to either download the playbill to their device at home or scan a QR code to interact with the website and download the playbill to their device once they arrive. Other theaters tell you to turn your cell phones off. But not us. We want you to leave them on, in silent mode of course,” said Chris LaBove.

Second Thought Theatre will be announcing the 2011-2012 Season in the coming weeks.

All shows in STT’s 2011-2012 Mainstage Season will be performed in Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys Campus, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd Dallas, TX 75129. To make a donation or to find out more information, please visit www.2tt.co

Per its mission statement, Atlanta’s 7 Stages Theatre devotes itself to “engaging artists and audiences by focusing on the social, political and spiritual values of contemporary culture.” One such value—environmentalism—has yielded a clever campaign that simultaneously promotes the theatre and sustainability.

…marketing director Charles Swint says the theatre asked itself, “What are some creative ways we can promote our shows without spending a lot of money?” Piggybacking off the green kick, 7 Stages partnered with the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) in a campaign where, in return for select buses featuring theatre advertising, 7 Stages will encourage its audience to use environmentally-conscious modes of transportation, like MARTA. “Our staff carpools, bikes and takes MARTA to the office and around town,” says Swint. “We want to encourage our patrons to do the same.” The deal is sweetened by a $5 discount offered to MARTA Breeze Card–holders.

xchange is a brand-new benefit for all TCG Members and Affiliates which allows you to buy, sell, trade and borrow goods, space and opportunities within the national theatre community.

* Have props, costumes, and set pieces to sell, rent or recycle?
* Looking for construction materials, lighting or sound equipment?
* Interested in artist housing rentals?
* Searching for performance, rehearsal or office space?
* Making a call for script submissions?

You can do all that and more on xchange!

xchange enables you to save and make money, reduce waste and connect to others in your city and across the country!

It’s easy — just log in with your member password to get started. Viewing posts is always free and, for a limited time, posting is also FREE!
Please Note: Posting to xchange is only available to TCG Member Theatres, Affiliates and Individual Members. For information on becoming a TCG Member Theatre/Affiliate or Individual Member and gaining exclusive access to xchange and other valuable member benefits, please see Membership.

Museums and galleries, along with a plethora of other ‘event’ based organisations such as theatres, festivals and so on, have been attempting for many years now, to assess their resource use and reduce it. Sustainability is big news in the world of culture.

To integrate sustainability into an organisation’s core practices it’s important to understand why you are taking the trouble. Don’t attempt to pay a lot of money to eco-profiteers who have no understanding of your core business. Many organisations hope to buy change. Unfortunately all that does is wipe the surface of a problem that may not even be truly understood yet.

There are plenty of companies and consultants out there ready to offer a few impressive powerpoint presentations and one-liners. It looks good on paper to say you’ve had an ‘expert’ in, but what have you really achieved? Introducing environmental sustainability into an organisation where the standards equal unsustainable consumption is never going to be easy. If your colleagues have no reason to go to the trouble of introducing new and alien practises that potentially harm the quality of their output, then who can blame them if they choose to ignore the experts.

An organisation needs to carefully plan each step without rushing into change. One way to utilise external expertise is to pilot organisational change with one department.

A museum for instance, might undertake a thorough audit of practices in the Conservation department across a six month period. Materials, products, energy, and costs should all be examined. This of course can be coordinated in-house by the conservation team themselves.

It is natural for the team to harbour a strong curiosity around the results and their impacts. Don’t waste their curiosity. Build upon it. This is where external expertise – guided by the museum and not the other way around – is invaluable. After a professional environmental sustainability team has audited the impacts one of the most important elements of this exercise comes into its own. In a workshop allowing the team to ‘find’ the solutions, the assistance of professionals explaining where eco perspectives and assumptions are mistaken or correct can be an engaging and transforming experience. Most people are shocked to find out that their beliefs around what’s good and bad are totally at odds with the facts.

Some of the biggest misconceptions involve the risks of higher costs, increased effort and comparable ineffectiveness of alternatives. Your workshop will need to integrate, not ignore, colleagues’ concerns. This might mean prior research on alternatives and even a couple of demonstrations. Peeling back the layers of disguise to uncover what a material or product needs to function can be a powerful tool in altering mindsets. At least it’s an improvement on a bunch of motherhood statements!

For instance, just imagine your marketing team comes to their workshop with a figure related to how much time they spend utilising online resources such as Facebook and Twitter. Their assumption might be that the dematerialistic nature of online communications is extremely eco friendly. Until you explain the impact of cloud computing and the enormous energy needs of data centres that organisations like Facebook require. Then show them this video.

It demonstrates how cheap energy is now being sourced and purchased for some of these data centres. Many of these data centres are choosing to buy renewable energy, but not all. So when your marketing team logs on to Facebook knowing that organisation uses dirty coal to fuel their enormous data centres, at the very least they’re not living in ignorance any longer, and they are conscious of Facebook’s impact on the environment.

The museum or gallery that chooses an educational strategy over motherhood consultants will be able to demonstrate tangible organisational change, not just a meaningless sentence buried in their Annual Report.

the EcoMuseum, is a project of Carole Hammond, Exhibition Manager and museum professional: combining the complex ideologies of aesthetics, culture, objects, entertainment…and environment.

For those of us who have followed the art and ecology movement over the last two decades, Mel Chin is considered an influential pioneer combining art with brownfield remediation. His famous or infamous Revival Field (1989-ongoing) funded with NEA money that was rescinded then later reinstated, demonstrated the natural processes of removing heavy metals from soil using hyper accumulator plants. He did this project in collaboration with an agronomist at a landfill site in Minnesota.

Mel will be in Los Angeles next week to give a talk on his Fundred Dollar Bill Project in New Orleans. If you have never heard him speak, you should go, with the promise that you will be entertained and educated. Being an artist should be so much fun!

At Green Allowance, kids make a deal with a parent: the kids save energy at home which saves money on the electric bill, and the parents share the savings as a Green Allowance.

Kids are already loving it. Here’s an honest to goodness quote forwarded to us this week:

“Ok every one! Google Green Allowance. PLZ! Its so cool. You save money on electric bills, and then if ur parents agree, you get the money that u save! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE google it! Its rlly fun, and free, and u get paid! Forward this to everyone on ur list!” – Emilia D., 7th grader

Visit www.greenallowance.com and explore the site. If you register (always free), you can check out the four Green Allowance gardens where kids learn what they can do to save energy and pick their projects. (BTW grownups, when in doubt, click the pig!)

Our pilot program in Glendale, California is commencing, and we expect them to catch the Green Allowance fever just as Emilia D., 7th grader did.

We are partnering with utilities to help them promote conservation in their communities. Green Allowance is a great way for utilities to:

market their existing energy efficiency programs

boost public relations and brand trust

support their schools and communities

enjoy a cost-effective demand-side management program

have quantified results

Spread the word; watch us grow, and if you have business inquiries just reply to this message!

Yours,

The Green Allowance Team

Green Allowance.
Save the Planet, Get Paid.

ABOUT GREEN ALLOWANCE: Green Allowance motivates and empowers children to be leaders in conservation, helping their families to be the most resource-efficient in the industrialized world. Children today list climate change as a top concern, but they are overwhelmed with options for action. Green Allowance is designed to nudge many of them to act by creating a monetary incentive that keeps them involved. For more information on Green Allowance go towww.greenallowance.com or write us at talk2people@greenallowance.com.

Michael Crowley just sent over the December issue of the Broadway Green Alliance “Green Sheet.”

He asks that we please stay tuned to www.broadwaygreen.com, as the new BGA website should be going live next week.

As always, please keep him abreast of green practices that are helping your organization save money and instill environmentally sound thinking into staff, artists and audiences. The BGA is eager to share better green practices from across the country.

This excerpt from Curtis Kasefang follows up on Bob Usdin’s August 2008 “How Green is Green?” Piece for LIve Design. Remember, November 2009 is Green Day at LDI.

In general, many speak of sustainability as having three overlapping components: economic, social, and environmental. Theatres, by definition, score high on the social sustainability scale as places where cultures can mix, and they exist to communicate ideas, broaden our points of view, educate, and entertain. When looked at with a wider lens, theatres also play a role in the economic sustainability of the urban environment. The impact that performance facilities have on communities by fueling jobs in the hospitality, food service, and retail industries, as well as their supply chains, is well documented. Theatre Communications Group, among others, has published studies on theatres’ economic impact on the larger community. Environmental sustainability can further economic sustainability in the operation of a theatre. If we use resources more efficiently, we save money. Environmental sustainability is usually what we are speaking of when we talk about “being green.”

Back in the spring I met John Bela of Rebar, one of the design team who thought up (Park)ing Day five years ago. The idea of turning parking spaces into parks for a day continues to spread. In my home town of Brighton, some artists have been creating the city’s first (Park)ing Daythere. This [picture above] is one being set up just a couple of hours ago by design consultants IDEO in Chicago.

It’s interesting this idea came from San Francisco, a city whose culture has been deeply influenced by the ideals that underpin the web. Create something good. Give it away. Measure its success by how far it spread, not by the money you make from it.

A nice nod to friends of the the CSPA Enci and Stephen Box on their sustainable film making!

“I would like to believe that because I’m starting it out right I will have it better and easier.” says Enci Box, actress, co-founder of Rebel Without A Car Productions and the green-minded first-time director of a short film “At What Price?” The project is one of the very first film productions that apply the rules of the Code of Best Practices in Sustainable Filmmaking in the production process. “I don’t believe in purchasing offsets because I think that is bull!”,” says Enci. “Everybody who has money can pretend to be green by paying other people off and that, to me, is bribery. It doesn’t do the community or the planet any good.”

via A Rebel Without A Car Productions Green Production | StubDog // Events.